Being a Philippine passport holder, you'll just have to assume that you will be required to apply for a tourist visa in the Philippines for every single first world country you may want to visit. It's the harsh reality, unfortunately. My U.K. visa would be the third time I'll have applied for a tourist visa, so you'd imagine I'd have this entire process down to a tee.

Growing up, I would hear countless horror stories of people getting denied a tourist visa to the United States. So, you can imagine my anxiety when the Guam Visitors Bureau invited me to visit their island, knowing I had to go through the scary visa processing and the fee you pay for it isn't exactly tiny.